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TechnoratiWhen a small group of high school kids and young college students vandalized an Army recruiting center near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, it was a golden moment of nostalgia for those who remembered the good old days.
Not the kids who broke windows and hurled a little paint, mind you. They were far too young to remember the split during the Vietnam years between the militant Weathermen and others in the anti-war movement.
The only weathermen they know wear navy blue blazers and stand in front of large screens with animated clouds on them.
But it now appears many of those who were in college during the '60s and '70s are now old enough to have become their own stodgy parents harrumphing around about kids today.
The most hysterical reactions to the minor incident came from some former young people who had aged gracelessly into right-wing talk show hosts with voices like clenched fists.
One particularly shrill female squawker called for the youthful miscreants to be brought up on federal charges and locked away in a penitentiary somewhere.
Of course, if we start filling up our Supermax prisons with vandals, we're going to have to build some Super Duper Maxes to deal with real criminals who actually harm someone.
That's not to say there weren't also anti-war critics who objected to rude tactics of the young.
An intergenerational battle raged on a local Indymedia Web site in which older war protesters scolded their young for alienating potential allies against the war, and anarchic adolescents sneered back about aging protesters walking around in circles chanting ineffectual slogans.
One young writer said he attended a family friendly anti-war march through downtown Milwaukee the previous weekend and nearly fell asleep. When we have a president determined to ignore public opinion and send more young Americans to their deaths, he felt the least he could do was break something.
It must be said the local media came down firmly on the side of young people busting up stuff if they want any attention to their views.
When 1,000 anti-war protesters marched down Wisconsin Avenue demanding an end to the war, not a word appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. When 21 young people were arrested for breaking some glass, the anti-war movement suddenly sprang to life in the media.
Actually, anyone who really remembers the escalating militancy of protesters in the '60s might suspect another connection between past and present.
We later learned that many of those who egged on protesters to increasingly obnoxious and violent behavior were actually agent provocateurs hired by the government to discredit the anti-war movement.
If we find out Halliburton has a no-bid contract to replace glass in Army recruiting centers, we'll know the Department of Homeland Security was behind the whole thing.
Many of the conservative talk shows tried to twist the attack on the Army recruiting center into an attack on U.S. soldiers. Aha! Finally, they had proof that opponents of the war really hated our brave men and women in the military.
Hardly. Anything that even temporarily interrupts the business of an Army recruiting center has the potential to save the lives of soldiers.
The whole reason the Army recruiting office is located next to the campus is to prey on low-income students who desperately need money to complete their college educations.
All the talk from recruiters about providing free money for college is the most cynical bait-and-switch since the Bush administration took advantage of idealistic young Americans volunteering to defend their country after 9/11 by immediately sending them to war against a country that had nothing to do with that horrific event.
If you return home maimed and shattered before completing your military obligation, you don't get the money. You don't get it if you never return home either.
And everyone now knows the truth about the moldy, rat-infested veterans hospitals our grateful nation provides to care for those who are lucky enough to make it back.
Yes, ill-mannered young people showed a lack of respect for their government by breaking those windows. But nobody died as a result.
So far, more than 3,200 young Americans have died because of the far more destructive lack of respect their own government has for them.
President Bush has declared he doesn't really doesn't care what the majority of the American people and the majority of their elected representatives in Congress think.
The president is hell bent on escalating the war and throwing away more young lives. The president doesn't believe in the sort of democracy where the opinion of an overwhelming majority of citizens matters.
But our most pious opinion leaders believe that is no excuse for young people to get downright impolite in their public protests.
Joel McNally of Milwaukee writes a weekly column for The Capital Times. E-mail: jmcnally@wi.rr.com
Copyright ©2007, Capital Newspapers
Published on Saturday, March 31, 2007 by The Capital Times (Wisconsin)
15 Comments so far
Show AllTo remind ourselves and reflect upon how turbulent the protests against the Vietnam War actually became, look to see if your cable provider offers the documentary:
***U.S. versus John Lennon***
This documentary demonstrates the extent to which Nixon's fear of Lennon's capacity to muster public sentiment became, and the depths to which Nixon sank in his abuse of power in effort to have Lennon deported, on trumped up charges. Nixon set his Hoover dogs out and hounded this poor guy for years. Lennon refused to cave in, and at the end, won his case in the Supreme Court.
It was Nixon's escalation of the war, by his invasion of Cambodia, that set the national protests spiraling into chaos. Let us not allow them to Nixon us again!
I still have a packet of rolling papers, from the old days, emblazoned with the image of the flag, accompanied by the statement: Be patriotic and burn a flag.
Here is a rallying cry for all of the souls, young and old, tired of the mindless bloody boots on the ground: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-NRriHlLUk
Peace, best wishes and hope
God, really the old scared supposed peaceniks are probably worse than the self righteous Ann Coulter types. Get on the young people's side and hopefully we'll find Ms. Coulter and Bush and their self-righteous never-worked-an-honest-day's-work gone and living in another nation just like David Duke. God Bless Louisiana he's gone! Support the youth and all the truly unpatriotic will leave as well before they bankrupt our nation.
I have to agree with Jaded Prole. The public was repelled by protesters throwing rocks at the police in Berkeley, and horrified by police dogs attacking marchers in Atlanta. When 4 little girls were blown up in a church, the tide shifted.
There are still almost 2 years more of this reign of terror. If I look on our freedom as a graph, it looks grim. We need to keep the pressure on Congress, especially Republicans. They're on the vergo of bolting from this President. Not talking to McCain and Kyl isn't the answer. They need to hear from their constituents. I have repeatedly contacted Gordon Smith, as I'm sure have many others, and he's up for reelection and running scared. He's actually voting with the Democrats on the war. Our Representaatives and Senators have local or at least regional offices with phone numbers, and I call those. I always identify myself as a constituent, and I'm polite, but very concerned. It works.
I have spent the last 5 years in the front lines of the peace movement. I am an unpaid organizer and worker who spends as much time on activism as some people do on regular jobs. I object most strenuously to the notion that what we accomplish, as halting and lame as our progress may be, is worth so little that we should blithely allow our message of peace to be usurped by purveyors of terror.
Yes, terror! The images of masked people burning US Troops in effigy that were spread around the nation from the march in Portland, OR are a wet fish in the face to middle america, and that's who we need to move. They see this kind of thing and it scares them to death! Maw and Paw wont come out to march or to learn how to do direct action-the peaceful nondestructive kind- or volunteer their time and resources to us if they are afraid of us or those around us!
If we are serious about making progress in a non-violent context we need to work harder to ensure that we are not associated with or harmed by the antics of the AnarKids. That includes allowing the Bushies to successfully diffuse our voices with the scheming of provocateurs. We in Portland are coming up with some really fun ideas that will actually forward our cause at the comical expense of the masked wonders without causing any harm to anyone, except perhaps a few AnarKid egos.
At first I was terribly angry about this situation but now I see it as an opportunity. With a little work, we can turn this adverse situation to our advantage.
The quality of tactics depend formost on their effectiveness. Every political event, short of revolution, has the specific purpose of educating and reaching out to the public to enlarge the movement. Surrounding the Whitehose from late Spring on until this administration is removed would be effective and if resistance to moving results in violence so be it. BUT if the violence is initiated by the state people will automatically side with the reisiters., as they did in Mississippi. If the protesters are throwing bricks and breaking things, the general public will side with the state and police and the message is lost. We do indeed have to be tactically creative because otherwise we are cubbyholed as "protesters" and nobody really notices but while I am not against violence under any circumstance we must look at effectiveness first, not what feels good to us.
The doctrine of "non-violent" protest is one of the all-time great public relations scams in history. To Orwellian-ize "violent" to mean any action that is forceful -- and therefore likely to be effective -- is a brilliant semantic coup for the keepers of the status quo.
"Violence" violates. It is the illegitmate use of force to wrongly deprive a person of life, liberty or property, in violation of the "inalienable rights" of human beings that we have long recognized, in theory if not in practice. We have terms for such illegitimate uses of force: assault, robbery, rape, kidnapping and murder, for example.
But you have every legal right-- as well as moral and natural rights -- to use force, even lethal force, to defend ourself from an immminent threat of grave bodiliy injury or death, when no other reasonable means of avoiding the threat is available. You may also employ such force to defend those whom you may lawfully protect. The details may vary from place to place, but the principle is fairly constant.
So, a little broken glass? Who CARES?
If a firefighter takes down a door or smashes a window to rescue victims, are you going to charge him/her with vandalism? If you answer "yes," then the straps on your straight-jacket aren't tight enough.
Stopping the criminal assault on Iraq is no less an attempt to save lives on both sides.
Older "former young protesters" who disdain the actions of these young people are either sell-outs or people for whom "the cause" was merely the latest variation of goldfish-swallowing, a "revolution" only useful for scoring free grass or getting laid.
There are a few ancient rebels who have NEVER surrendered, never retreated and I hope to hell I'm one of them. We need more forceful actions in degree and number and I salute those who see "non-violent protest" as an exercise in feel-good flaccidity, guaranteed to accomplish nothing. Every day we twiddle around with our sanctimonious sign-carrying and song-singing we allow our outlaw government to condemn more people -- Iraqui and American -- to death.
I remind you that the first King George we got rid of did not step down because of petitions or peaceful protests and more than any other tyrant in history has ever relinquished power voluntarily. And neither will our current King George.
So. A little tea in the harbor?
That's what I call a good start.
SJ
www.spartacusjones.com
I think the mistake is believing that there is only one path to change. Personally, I think every effort, every act of resistance, whether it be a peaceful march, civil disobedience, or a lound angry display and even violent confrontation helps to create an environment for change. Although it may appear that infighting splits social "movements," these movements are not monolithic; they mean different things to different people. The main thing is that people recognize how bad things are and that they act.
I am less concerned about tactics and strategy than about the real possibility for systemic change. Sure, the war will end, maybe tax laws will become a bit more equitable, maybe a few more corrupt politicians will be booted out, but then what? The system, the "death machine" that capitalism imposes is still there.
You do have to wonder what good a thousand peaceful marches will do when Bush et al just really don't care. Of course, violence against people is abhorrent, but I think "non-violence" has been confused with "non-destructiveness". I'm not advocating going out and burning down a building -- perhaps what I mean is the pernicious insistence on "non-anger".
Let me give an example. A few years back I was in a college bookstore with a huge check-out line. It was 6:00 PM and everyone's evening class was about to start. The cashiers were lazily going about their business and quite obviously didn't give a shit whether anyone was late or not. I was toward the head of the line. I woman suddenly appeared and desperately said her class was about to start and could she cut into line? One of the sadistic cashiers tauntingly said, "Well, maybe you should check with all the others in line." The hypocrisy and injustice was too much for me and I blurted out "No, I think we're going to let her into the front of the line." I said it loudly and angrily, and everyone in the room pricked up their ears. What happened next was rather amazing. The cashiers snapped, and I mean SNAPPED into gear and started processing checkouts with superhuman rapidity. It was edifying. Sometimes just the hint of imbalance, like maybe, just maybe they've got some lone nut in the same room with them makes all the difference.
The moral of the story is that there is a time for anger, and anger often gets result when nothing else will.
Thanks for listening to my drawn out story.
The problem is that each swing of the pendulum swings wider and wilder. Silent protests lead to swearing, spitting counter- demonstrators, which lead to physical violence which lead to police supression, which lead to more cunning, dramatic, and even violent disruption, which can eventually lead to martial law.
The more we are divided the more easily we are conquered by our own fears and prejudices as well asthe well organized enemies of freedom who are quite willing to endure hypocrisy in the name of power acquisition.
Each step gets us farther and farther apart from one another.
If everyone decided to have a no TV month (if you can do it for one month you can do it for two, etc.), make a determined effort to actually go and talk to their neighbors (not to persuade them but to build a relationship with them), go to the school board, city council, and other community organization mettings, we could begin to turn this country around becasue THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF THEM--but they are better organized and more determined than the rest of us.
Hey, this is a society that holds property rights as sacrosanct, far surpassing any other rights, such as the right not to be tortured, the right to free speech, the right to form a labor union, the right of animals not to be deprived of every natural behavior in factory farms. Look at the environmental activists who were thrown into prison for setting fire to a couple of SUV's a few years back. No, those windows are government property. They must be protected at at all cost, or society as we know it will simply unravel
Impower our young protesters! Let 'em know that we appreciate their efforts. If the media continues to ignore the will of the people and "peaceful" demonstrations, then maybe we are going to have to follow in the footsteps of our young radicles and the original founders of our independence.
I would really like to think that peaceful demonstrations and resistance were going to get the job done. From what I've seen, that doesn't seem to be working.
Another alternative is to IMPEACH NOW!!!!
The next best thing is to support election and campaign finance reform so that this country NEVER has to suffer through another evil administration like we have now. Take back our democracy! Make your vote count and be counted! It's only a click away and you don't even have to break any glass! What a deal! Start at Common Cause. They will get you pointed in the right direction.
We need a new government.
www.gpln.com/newgovernment.htm
Dont forget the flag. Keeping a piece of fabric protected from abuse is far more important than protecting lives. They should be called flag huggers.
Unfortunately, the writer of this article played into the aged, docile "peace movement" themselves by insisting on calling us soldiers "brave." They are not brave or somehow good people because they volunteered to go out and kill arab population. I don't support any military operations, and I think trashing recruiting centers is great.
It's no wonder young people have no respect for their government. Why should they? This government views them only as cannon fodder to fight illegal wars. It's encouraging that there are kids out there who can see through the "patriotic" crap we've been fed for the past six years. More power to them.